Dayton Daily News from Dayton, Ohio • 27

1 Mill Ttr HI Dec 29. 1989 Dwyton Patty Hmw Lifestyle ou can see the finish line from here!" "Just a half a mile to go. and it's all downhill!" "You can doit!" And then that blatant untruth: form. (Because of flooding on the river, the River Run was shortened this year to 6.8 miles. I ran it in about 48 minutes.) Sometime this summer.

Stein, a veteran of six marathons, started talking about running in Columbus. I was ambivalent. On the one hand, if I was ever going to run a marathon, this seemed like the ideal time. I knew I'd never do something like that on my own, and now I had friends to help me with the training. But 26.2 miles is a long distance, and I didn't know if I could hack it.

I decided to start training with the others and see how I felt as the marathon drew nearer. I did a few 1 1 -mile runs on my own on weekends. Then, in mid September, training began in earnest; one chilly morning we ran from the Vietnam War Veterans Park at Patterson Boulevard and Stewart Street down the river bikeway to West Carrollton, about 17 miles. I ran three races in October: the 10-kilometer Minster Oktoberfest run, Grand-view Hospital's 10K Race To The Finish and the Dayton River Corridor Classic, a half-marathon of 13.1 miles. I didn't burn up the course on any of them, but I was satisfied with my times; my best 10K was 42:27 and I ran the half-marathon in 93:34.

We also continued our training runs, finally working up to 25 miles, with a few brief rest stops. I felt good enough about the way I was running that I decided to enter the Columbus Marathon, along with Coulter, Babcock and Stein, that was held on Nov. 12. The night before the race I was too keyed up to sleep. So at 9:30 a.m., I found myself standing in the heart of Columbus, bleary-eyed and a little spacey from lack of sleep, with 3,999 other runners.

Fifteen minutes later, the race got under way. It was a beautiful day for running, warm with no wind. 'Instead of reveling in being half finished, I was appalled I still had half the race left to run Coulter quickly deviated from our plan to stick together through the early part of the race. He left us in his dust. Babcock, Stein and I hung together for awhile.

Like I said, the crowd was very supportive, although sometimes spectator optimism was a little annoying. At the one-mile mark, somebody yelled, "Only 25 more miles to go!" Babcock and I planned to maintain a pace of eight minutes per mile, and we held that pace almost exactly for more than half the race before we started to lag. There were 17 stations along the course where runners could pick up water and Exceed, a Gatorade-type beverage designed to replenish lost fluids in the body. Volunteers hold out paper cups and runners drink on the run. Our strategy included getting as much Exceed as possible, so we took drinks at every station.

Exceed may have a lot of WALLY NELSONSTAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Pacing themselves during noon jaunt (from left) Scott Coulter, Norm Stein, Tom Beyerlein, Jim Babcock "Hang in there. You're looking good!" I certainly was not looking good not if I looked anything like I felt. I was so tired, I'd have had to rest up to be exhausted. The bottoms of my feet were so tender, it felt like I was running in my stocking feet. Every pebble I stepped on felt like a railroad spike.

My knees, my ankles, my thighs, my calves, my groin all ached. Each step was a new adventure in pain. But I couldn't help but love the good people of Columbus, even if they were pathological liars. Their good will was palpable through every stinking yard of that 26.2-mile-long torture chamber they'd prepared for us. Of course, I had no one but myself to blame for my masochism.

Nobody dragged me to the state capital, that Sunday in November, pistol-whipped me 'til I put on my track shoes and those sissy-looking tights, and pressured me to line up at the starting gate for the 1 Oth annual Columbus Marathon. My road to the marathon began over a year ago when, overweight and out of shape at age 32, 1 was gently nudged by a friend to join him at a twice-weekly running program at Kettering Medical Center. The program, which is free and open to the public, lasts for an hour on Mondays and Thursdays, and includes 20 minutes of warm-up exercises, 20 minutes of running and 20 minutes of calisthenics. That first session was tough. I huffed and puffed my way through it but when it was over, I was achy, sweaty, exhausted and exhilarated! 7 began watching what I ate, and the weight started dropping off, 50 pounds in a 4-month period' "Don't worry.

It gets easier," the exercise leader told us neophytes in the crowd. I kept coming back, and it didgel easier. I also began running about two miles a day on days when the class wasn't meeting. I began watching what I ate, and the weight started dropping off, 50 pounds in a four-month period. I started feeling healthier.

But I never would have become a true long-distance runner if not for four of my co-workers: Jim Babcock, Rosemary Harty, Norm Stein and Scott Coulter. These four run six or seven miles every day at lunch time, and they've sort of gotten a reputation as hard-core running fools. I don't remember how I came to join them in February. I think somebody remarked on my weight loss, I mentioned the running class, and they invited me to come along with them. I told them there was no way I could run six miles at a LIFE THE Novice competitor conquers marathon run, takes on life with new pride in his stride By Tom Beyerlein staff writer six-mile course.

It was a challenge for a few weeks, but eventually that, too, got easier. 7 knew I'd never do something like that on my own now I had friends to help me with the training' One morning I sat down at my desk and saw a copy of an entry form for the Dayton Daily News River Run. The idea was daunting: it was to be 15 kilometers more than nine miles and the farthest I'd ever run was seven. I told the others to count me out. stretch.

No problem, they said. They usually run on the bikeway along the Great Miami River, and all I had to do was to get off at the halfway point and go back to the newspaper building by myself while they completed the course. They had made me an offer I couldn't refuse. It was fun to run with a group, and the mid-day run seemed to give me a burst of energy to help me get through the afternoon. And since I was running during lunch hour, I wasn't eating as much.

Before long, my cohorts had goaded me into running five miles a day, then the full Then one April day at noon, Babcock, one of my fellow reporters, led us on a different course than the one we usually take. We set out north from downtown Dayton, went out past Island Park almost to Wegerzyn Garden Center. I smelled something fishy. We kept getting farther and farther away from downtown. Suddenly, we turned around and started heading back, and Babcock confessed: He took me out that far so I'd have to run a full nine miles, so I'd be confident I was in shape for the River Run in early May.

I decided to go for it, and sent in my entry SEE MARATH0N2C Good health is everything, Americans say the primer on good looks and healthy life styles, are, in fact, more likely to exercise than are people living elsewhere. While more than half of all Americans said they exercise regularly, nearly two-thirds of Californians said they are habitual exercisers. New Englanders are also frequent exercisers, the Times poll found, but, according to a survey released last summer by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, New Yorkers are the most sedentary of all Americans. Women and the elderly seem to be exercising a good deal more than they once did, whereas blue-collar workers are exercising less, the government surveys show.

Whether it is working on the docks unloading ships or collecting trash, many low-paying, manual jobs are becoming increasingly automated so that blue-collar workers are expending less physical energy at work. At the same time, the people who hold such jobs do not seem to be nearly as attracted to leisure-time exercise activities as are better-educated, more well-to-do Americans. of men and 55 percent of women said they wanted health and a long life above all else. Apparently spurred by growing publicity about the virtues of exercise, the majority of American adults 53 percent of women and 60 percent of men say that they exercise regularly. The most popular form of activity was walking (39 percent), followed by swimming (15 percent), bicycling (8 percent) and jogging (7 percent).

"Not surprisingly, the poll also shows that people who were well-to-do and single were more likely than others to exercise. For reasons that aren't immediately apparent, liberals and conservatives are more likely than middle-of-the-roaders to be involved in exercise. And Republicans are also somewhat more likely than Democrats to be frequent exercisers confirming the notion that exercise is an upscale occupation," says I. A. Lewis, who directed the poll.

Southern Californians, who by reputation wrote LOS ANGELES TIMES Americans have become remarkably health conscious. According to a Los Angeles. Times poll, they are exercising and reading the labels of food packages. They are cutting down on sugar, alcohol and, especially, red meat. They are eating more vegetables and drinking more water.

Not everyone is pursuing virtue at the dinner table or in a health club, but many Americans, especially women, say good health is what they want most out of life. And, increasingly, they are willing to make sacrifices to get what they want. Given only one choice, the survey asked, what is the most important thing in life: to be creative, famous, powerful, wealthy, healthy? Of the 3,583 Americans interviewed, only 1 percent wanted power, 5 percent wealth, 6 percent creativity, 8 percent success; 10 percent wanted a happy marriage, 16 percent wanted to help others. But a striking 50 percent of all adults 43 percent Poll indicates we're exercising options, caring for our bodies Selling of Berlin Wall a concrete example of insensitivity STEWART crites in our pulpits. For politicians who sell their influence like round-heeled prostitutes.

For greedy financiers who pay to leap into their beds. The selling of the Berlin Wall deserves not much more than mild disdain. A deep sigh and a gentle head shake at the thought that there are people willing to put a price tag on the misfortune of a nation. And people who are willing to pay it. Still.

I'm glad that no one bought me a piece of the Berlin Wall for Christmas. The 10-pound fruitcake was tasteless enough. One of the best things about the Christmas just passed is that none of my kids bought me a piece of the Berlin Wall. I feel good about that. It gives me hope that maybe I raised them with just a tiny bit of good taste.

With at least a modicum of human sensitivity. It's possible I give myself too much credit. It could be that they just didn't know that the Berlin Wall was for sale. Or perhaps they were just too cheap to spend the $8.88. Eight eighty-eight.

That's the price of the "proud tribute to freedom" being sold at a dozen Kroger stores in the Dayton area. For $8.88 they're offering a box containing an "authentic cut from the Berlin Wall" in a soft pouch. And a declaration of authenticity. And an informative booklet. It is the ultimate in one-stop shopping.

In the same cart you can put your canned peas, your frozen burritos, your cat box filler and your "proud tribute to freedom." The one-ounce pieces of the Wall are being marketed by Hyman Products Inc. of Maryland Heights, which also is distributing them at Service Merchandise stores nationwide. In the words of the gurgling prose of a full-page advertisement that ran in USA Today. "As you hold a cut from the heart of the Berlin wall, you will feel the distant, gentle tremors of tomorrow's history." You wouldn't just be getting a piece of concrete. You would be getting "an Icon for Future Generations." "A chance to celebrate the triumphs of hope and freedom." An opportunity to "actually grasp history in the palm of our hands." With all due respect to history, not to mention hope and freedom, I'm glad nobody bought me one.

If I held a cut from the heart of the Berlin Wall in my hand, I don't think ple at Hyman Products Inc. are not fools. At the Service Merchandise store in Springfield, sales in the week before Christmas were going "very well," according to the clerk with whom I spoke. At best, a piece of the Berlin Wall is nothing more than this year's Pet Rock. A symbol not of captive people but of free enterprise.

The difference is that the Pet Rock was sort of cute and sort of silly. The selling of the Berlin Wall is just sort of tasteless and sort of pathetic. It trivializes a nation's misfortune. It is as if German hucksters came to the South after this country's Civil War and bid for the right to sell the chains used to fetter the slaves. The marketing of the Berlin Wall hardly is a cause for outrage.

Outrage is better saved for more cosmic matters. For hunger and homelessness. For drug d(riMMMMlHtfMMIMflMttKIM I'd feel the distant, gentle tremors of tomorrow's history. I think I'd just feel depressed. Depressed at the thought there are people who would put a price tag on the symbol of an entire nation's misfortune.

Depressed at the thought there are people who would pay it. But there are, of course, people who will pay it. Whatever else they might be, the peo D.L. STEWART'S column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays in Lifestyle. Address letters to D.L.

Stewart. Features Department Dayton Daily News, Fourth and Ludlow streets'.